Many vehicle service facilities have service writers that greet customers that bring their vehicle to the service facilities, and service technicians that perform service procedures to the customer vehicles. The service writers may talk to each customer to determine why the customer brought their vehicle in for service. At some vehicle service facilities, service writers prepare hand-written repair orders that indicate the reason why each vehicle has been brought in for service. While the vehicles are being serviced at these service facilities, service technicians or service writers may record hand-written notes on each repair order, such as notes to indicate the type of service performed to each vehicle. At other vehicle service facilities, service writers prepare machine-written repair orders that indicate why each has been brought in for service. While the vehicles are being serviced at these service facilities, service technicians or service writers may record hand-written notes on repair orders so as to indicate the type of service performed to each vehicle.
At many vehicle service facilities, service writers typically talk to the service technician that performed service procedures to a given vehicle and/or to a person that works in a service parts department to determine the type of service performed to the given vehicle. Based on the information provided to the service writer, the service writer may record hand-written notes on the repair order for the given vehicle. Additionally, the service writer or technician may record on the repair order hand-written notes regarding diagnostic information gathered from the given vehicle. For example, the service writer may record on the repair order hand-written notes indicating one or more diagnostic trouble codes that were set in an electronic control unit (ECU) of the given vehicle.
Subsequently, when the given vehicle is brought in for additional service at the service facility, in order to determine the type of service previously performed to the given vehicle, the service writer or service technician may need to read the hand-written notes recorded on previous repairs orders used for the given vehicle. In some instances, the previous repair orders may have been damaged or lost, the hand-written notes may be illegible, and/or the hand-written notes may be inaccurate and/or incorrect. In these instances, service technicians may be unable to refer to the service history of the given vehicle.